Nicolás Bacal

Light Years

Nicolás Bacal uses everyday materials to evoke systems in his sculptures and installations. He often employs and alters clocks, using them as metaphors for human relationships. Light Years uses measuring tapes to gesture toward a cosmic idea. The piece consists of twelve measuring tapes of different lengths, radiating out from a central mounting point on the wall. The work is at once a literal reference to the hands on a clock, a solar flare, and progressive durations of time. The length of each tape increases as the eye moves clockwise around the circle, with 10 centimeters representing one o’clock and 120 centimeters standing for noon or midnight. The piece also references art historical works such as Marcel Duchamp’s painting Network of Stoppages (1914). But unlike Duchamp’s work, there are no “stoppages” here; rather, time is presented as a linear flow.